The Philips CD100 – and with it the new Compact Disc format – was released on October 1, 1982, and it came at a good moment for the music industry. The once-dominant LP format was on the decline; seven years earlier, it had sold a staggering 91.6 million discs in the United Kingdom, but by […]
Philips CD100 Review Read More »
We’ve seen a quiet revolution in stereo amplifier design over the last few years, as we’ve seen a shift from one style of creating power amplifiers to another. In the grand scale of things, the delayed transition from Class AB to Class D functioning is noteworthy for a variety of reasons – probably on par
Rotel RB-1092 Review Read More »
The A-400 integrated amplifier from Pioneer was released in the spring of 1990 to rave reviews in the United Kingdom. The fact that Japanese amplifiers had been regarded with great distrust in the British press until then, simply because they weren’t particularly audiophile in orientation, played a part in the dynamic. For example, a decade
Pioneer A-400 Review Read More »
It’s unfortunate that so many outstanding brands have faded away, from Leak and Garrard in the United Kingdom to Micro Seiki and Sansui in Japan. In the 1970s, the latter was one of the most well-known Nipponese brands, with a proud array of high-end, high-quality items with an uniquely slimline yet powerful sound. The Sansui
Sansui AU-317 Review Read More »
Pioneer, as its name implies, has often been at the forefront of innovative formats and technologies. It produced various excellent turntables in the 1970s, ranging from the PL-12D budget deck in 1974 to the PL-L1000 high-end parallel tracker in 1978. It was a big shot in cassette, too, making decks that pushed the format to
Pioneer D-07A Review Read More »
It’s been a long time, but if you time-traveled to the mid-1970s and conducted a poll of the most popular phono cartridge on the market, this would undoubtedly come out on top. Between 1974 and 1979, the Shure M75ED ‘Stereo Dynetic Cartridge’ appeared on practically every new turntable on the market. Of course, your Linn
Shure M75ED Type 2 Review Read More »
Pioneer’s PL-600 turntable was a wonderful turntable that seems to have dropped down the back of the sofa when it was released in 1979. It was a generation ahead of the company’s prior record players, being sleek and futuristic. The PL-200, an excellent quality but simple semi-automatic direct drive turntable, was the top conventional turntable
Pioneer PL-600 Review Read More »
There have been few items in hi-fi that have lasted as long as the Shure V15. It was the American company’s main pickup cartridge from 1964 to 2005, and it went through eight different iterations. It cultivated a devoted following; for others, it was the only method to listen to LP music. The V15 had
Shure V15VxMR Review Read More »
From a British perspective, high-end turntables in the late 1970s started with Rega’s Planar 3 and finished with the fully equipped Linn Sondek. That was the final chapter of the story. However, in those heady days when belt-drive ruled the roost and direct-drives were judged ‘unmusical’ by the UK press, any audiophile looking East would
Pioneer PL-L1000 Review Read More »
The ‘Scale Model Equipment Company Ltd’ was founded in 1946 to produce parts for the model engineering industry, but by the 1950s, it had expanded to include aircraft instruments and commercial machinery. The first ‘precise pick-up arm’ from SME didn’t come until 1959. It was a revelation by agricultural standards of the time, and it
